its actions. ukrainian forces move to restore order in eastern ukraine, it is obvious to the world that these russian-backed groups are not peace. protesters. they are heavily armed militants who are receiving significant support from russia. >> we'll discuss whether the two leaders with forge a united front in the face of russian aggression and auto renewed violence in ukraine. later, we'll dive into today's headline grabbing jobs report and why good news sounds so much like bad news for the gop. and melissa harris perry, msnbc's own, will be right here with us to discuss the plight of some 200 kidnapped school girls in nigeria. there were protests in new york today near the u.n., and we'll have more on that and what, if anything, the u.s. is doing to help. but we start with that joint news conference in front of the white house rose garden where president obama began with the jobs numbers and a few words on a devastating landslide and in afghanistan. both he and german chancellor

angela merkel have tough questions on whether they can reach an agreement on stronger sakes against russia and whether they can bridge the divide between the u.s. and germany on nsa surveillance. president obama also faced a question from the international press about tuesday's botched oklahoma execution. on ukraine both leaders seemed amenable to the possibility of further sanctions that take direct aim at key sectors of the russian economy. sanction that is could potentially damage a sluggish european economy as well. president obama said it all depends on how deeply russia interferes with ukraine in the lead-up to its elections later this month. >> if, in fact, we see the disruptions and the destabilization continuing so severely that it impedes elections on may 25th, we will not have a choice but to move forward with additional more severe sanctions. >> for her part chancellor merkel told the associated

press -- the assembled press that, "the post-war order has been put into question by the actions of russia and vladimir putinin." it comes as ukraine has attempted to take back one key city, leaving at least two dead in the fighting and separatists have downed at least two ukrainian helicopters. a point the president touched on in his comments. >> the notion that this is some spontaneous uprising in eastern ukraine is belied by all the evidence of well-organized, trained, armed militias with the capacity to shoot down helicopters generally local protesters don't possess that capacity of surface-to-air missiles. >> michael hanlan is the senior policy fellow at the brookings institution. the discussion of more sanctions, right, it includes a lot of ideas for racheting up the pressure on individual russians, people close to

vladimir putin. what you are not hearing is the idea of strong sanctions directly taking aim at the oil and gas sectors inside russia. why do you suppose that is? >> well, it's a great point, joy, and i think that that's where we really have to make the credible threat if we want mr. putin to know that an egregious russian invasion of eastern ukraine, for example, might be in the offing. it sounded to me from the press conference that mr. obama was thinking about a somewhat lesser degree of russian aggression or provocation, some kind of disruption to the may 25th use containian presidential elections. if that's the case, he is probably not going to convince chancellor merkel or other european leaders to go along with truly sweetening sanctions because they're going to see that as one more incremental step from where we are today, but not so egregious as to put their whole economic future, their whole economic recovery at risk, as you correctly pointed out, it is at risk in the event of those sweeping sectoral

sanctions. >> it does seem like germany is the key, right? any sort of broader solution, the european part of that solution, is yerm germany, and explain why that is. >> well, i think you're right because, first of all, of course, germany is the most important european economy. second, it has a fairly high dependence on russian gas. i think there are a couple of countries like poland to have an even higher percentage from russia, but germany is way up there. third, germany has been the historical friend of russia in the modern era, and, therefore, if germany were to turn, you would expect that other countries, let's say britain, wouldn't be too far behind or maybe even with germany in lock step. so for those kinds of reasons, i do agree that germany is probably the centerpiece of this whole debate. certainly within europe. i think merkel is going to want to avoid the sectoral sanctions until something truly escalating above and beyond what we're seeing now. let's say, for example, a russian military incursion with main combat units in the eastern ukraine. if that happened, i think she

would have no choice but to go along with the sectoral sanctions. >> if something like that were to happen, what about the u.s., and if something like that were to happen, if the military piece becomes more egrej, there are people inside the u.s. saying we should be providing more military support to ukraine. we should be shoring them up, including getting arms in there. from where your read of it is, do you think that's something we should be doing? >> i would not personally, although this is a close call in my mind because it is fair for ukraine to have the ability to depend itself clearly. it's a sovereign state. it's being aggressed against. i think that it's reasonable to make the case for more arm meant, but i also think it would not make a difference in the outcome very likely. also, it would perhaps be seen as one more excuse by putin to blame the crisis on us. in his own mind, to retaliate with the same kind of charge against us that we use against him. we claim that he is stoking up the crisis with his black suited henchmen.

he would claim that we're doing the same thing or maybe even more with our arms shipments. i'm not saying he would be right, but that's the kind of justification he might use within the russian debate where he already has 80% popularity. i don't want to give him that kind of an excuse. the main point is it wouldn't make a big military difference for what we can get there fast anyway. >> what's interesting, i want to turn to the dpesic piece. the nbc news-wall street journal poll had a really contradictory numbers in the way americans are perceive this whole crisis. with president obama specifically, overall people disapproving of the foreign policy, overall the president. 38% saying they approve 3% saying they disapprove. going to the handling of russia and ukraine now, people saying that in terms of the handling of russia and ukraine, disapprove is higher than approve. 45% versus 37%. when you ask people about whether or not they think that president obama's foreign policy has been balanced too bold or too cautious. this is the number that i think was interesting. 42% saying that they feel he takes a balanced approach.

only 36% saying they think he is too cautious. only 15 pebz e% saying he is too bold. this sort of contradictory idea that the american people do not want to get more involved in these kinds of conflicts, but still somehow don't like, i guess, the vibe that's being projected out of the white house. that is entirely contradictory. maybe not to you. what are your thoughts? >> i think you're right. i think what are you doing is identifying competing desires on the part of the american people. we don't want to get involved. certainly not in messy conflicts a long way from home with no particular confidence that any u.s. role could be helpful, but we also still view ourselves as the leader of the world, and americans may not tend to say that or admit that, but americans pretty strongly feel that in the absence of our leadership there's really no other way the international order is going to be maintained. i think that that is actually a correct view even though people don't always admit it and don't always acknowledge it. so where does that leave you? you have these competing desires. what you want to do is think

through all the plausible policy options you have and figure out which ones satisfies both of those concerns to at least some degree. minimizing or limbing our involvement, but also not letting the world fall apart. i actually think president obama has done a pretty good job on ukraine by those measures, but for people to reach that same conclusion, they're going to have to think through all the other possibilities. what should we be doing? sending u.s. troops directly? slapping on sanctions a lot more strongly? arming the ukrainians? you have to assess each one of those and then you determine if what obama has chosen is the best approach. i think it probably more or less is. there's obviously plenty of room for disagreement. >> yeah. the politic thing to do would be to talk tough, just don't do anything. it's very strange. we really appreciate you being here. michael hanlan, thanks a lot. >> thank you, joy. now a quick alert on the story that republicans won't let go. you know what i'm talking about. ben ghazi. house spiker john boehner is appointing a select committee to investigate the terror attacks. the move comes as we also learn today that congressman darrell

issa has just subpoenaed secretary of state john kerry. the house oversight committee chair wants secretary kerry who at the time of the 2012 attacks was a united states senator to testify about the attack on the u.s. consulate that killed america's ambassador to libya and three others. issa wants kerry to appear before the committee at a public hearing on may 21st. coming up, first we got good news on health care sign-ups. now good news on jobs. even republicans are having a hard time pouring cold water on all the data goodness. then melissa harris perry joins me to talk about the horrific story of nearly 300 kidnapped nigerian school girls. ♪ with diabetes, it's tough to keep life balanced. i don't always have time to eat like i should. and the more i focus on everything else, the less time i have to take care of me. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes. glucerna products help me keep everythibalanced.

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take a look at today's monthly jobs report.

or just open your windo. either way you'll find the exact same thing. it's looking mighty nice out there. the labor department says nearly 300,000 jobs were created in april dropping the unemployment rate to 6.3%. the numbers were better than expected. when you add in the revisions to the previous two months, that's three months in a row that we've been over 200,000 new jobs. now, as with most job reports, there are some not so rosy numbers, and a big one republicans are seizing on is this month's report is the decline in the overall civilian labor force. that's a total number of people working. that decline more than offset march's gains. that means that part of the lower unemployment rate is people leaving the work force. either through retirement or in some cases because they stopped looking for work. in his statement today, house speaker john boehner said we need morrow bust economic growth while his number two eric cantor said we can't just sit back and cross our fingers every month. no, no, we can't. there are things we could do to make these great jobs numbers even better. things boehner, cantor and their

party have refused to do. only under president obama. nicole wu is the director of domestic policy at the center for economic policy research and ovik roy is a senior fellow at the manhattan institute and is the opinion editor for "forbes magazine." thanks to both of you for being here. >> glad to be here. >> in looking at the jobs report, i'm going to start with you, ovik, because are you here with me. i'm going to start with you. >> sure. >> the sort of -- the republican take-away -- it's politics so they have to say this isn't great. it is a better than expected number, but what republicans really look at is that number of the civilian -- the whole work force going down. now, we know that part of that is people retiring, but why do you suppose that the number of people reduced overall somehow detracts from these good job numbers? >> i think the overall picture is encouraging, and the deep detriment in the labor force participation is one small astericks that goes in the negative direction. one thing that's actually interesting is i think the presumption is that because it

was people that were retiring, and that's why the labor force is shrinking. >> they are. >> if you look at the age breakdown of people dropping out, it's actually older people are actually postponing retirement. there is an increase in their participating in the labor force. it's actually young people, 18 to 24, 24 to 35, that's where the dropoff in the labor force participation is highest, which is a concern, and it's also something where the labor force participation is really a bigger problem for people who don't have a college education. college degree or part college, those people are doing well. people without a college degree, high school or below, those are the ones struggling the most. >> that's an interesting point, nicole, that really what we're seeing then is sort of perhaps what's coming back because you did have a lot of people who were, you know, 40s and up lose jobs in the great recession that started in 2007, 2008, and that maybe that number is stabilizing more than the people who were just recent college graduates. what kind of remedies should we be doing to try to combat that and to get more people in on these -- on this job growth? >> well, if you look at the trend over the last four years,

it's actually workers over 55 who accounted for most of the growth and jobs over the last four years, and just last month in march we saw a drop in the older workers labor force participation for the first time in quite a while. it's helped some older workers, who might have been staying in jobs, who had bad health, and they were just hanging on because they needed health care. they're now free to go on the exchanges, and that does open up space for these younger workers. i think we can see this as a positive, actually. >> of course, we've had eight million people sign up in the federal state exchanges. we've had another 4.8 million getting expanded medicaid. 3 million under their parents' plan under 26 years old. five million to purchase outside plans. the other part of that, and i know that republicans don't like obama care, but it also has helped to increase the

employment within the health care sector and while republicans don't like the navigators, but you have more employment in the field that is responsible for getting people insurance. you have actually seen job growth because of the affordable care act. >> yeah. that's kind of a mixed bag because we spend so much on health care, but there are a lot of jobs in the health care sector. what is it, 17% of our gross domestic product is health care spending. obviously, that means a lot of jobs are from the health care sector. that means also that health insurance is expensive, that health care is expensive, and that overall is a drag on the economy. in an ideal world -- >> the costs are going down. the cbo has said that since we've implemented the aca, the overall health care costs aren't going up, they're going down. >> actually, this month there was a big spike in health care spending. i think it was 9.9%, which is a bonus because of all the people who are enrolling. >> enrolling on the exchanges. exactly. >> so right now we are seeing still a relatively high amount of spending as a percent of gdp. if we get that down, which hopefully the aca will solve. whatever the solution is, getting that down will mean less

employment through health care, but actually it will be better for the country and the economy. >> then the other thing is you do also have sort of the perception still of the economy among ordinary people, a feeling not good, right? we get these great numbers month after month, but we just did a poll, the nbc, wall street journal said -- people said they're falling behind was a majority. 56%. just enough to maintain 56%. falling behind 22%. getting ahead only 21%. then we ask, you know, do you think -- do you agree with the statement that america is no longer a country where everyone could get ahead? 54% of people agreeing with that, and really saying that they just don't feel like things are getting better. why do you suppose there is this gap between the impeer cal data that things are getting better and the way people feel about it? >> well, getting back to the drop of 800,000 people in the labor force, another part of that in addition to people being able to go into the health exchanges, if they didn't want to stay in their jobs is the fact that a lot of folks lost their long-term unemployment

insurance benefits. there's a lot of research out there, the san francisco fed, the university of california at berkeley, and our recent example of the state of north carolina when people lose their insurance benefits, they tend to just stop looking for work. that's another part of that 800,000 figure. you know, that's part of the reason that a lot of people aren't feeling this recovery of the way they should. also, the wage growth was at about 2.1% in the past month, which is just about the average. it's been there for a while. it's good to have some growth, but it's not the kind of healthy growth to help people catch up since the recession. >> and ovik, that brings me back to the republican party because, listen, i have to tell you, that loss of long-term unemployment benefits for people that still cannot get through the united states house of representatives. you do have a sense that when george w. bush was president, the answer to the recession was stimulus. i remember getting that check in the mail for $600. people who didn't have kids got $300. direct stimulus injected into the economy. i want to play you one of my

favorite pieces of sountd from one john boehner. this was john boehner. arguing to his party and asking them, begging them to pass the troubled asset relief program. tarp. a bailout for wall street. let's take a listen. >> i ask all of you, both sides of the aisle, what's in the both interest of our country? not what's in the best interest of our party. not what's in the best interest of our own re-election. what's in the best interest of our country? vote yes. >> ovik, he we want on the floor of the house for tarp. republicans did stimulus. they did spending. why is it that republicans believe when there is a republican in the white house, you do stimulus, you inject money into the economy. when there is a democrat in the white house, suddenly you do austerity. >> yeah, actually the evidence from that stimulus in the bush era is it didn't actually make a dent in the economy at all because it was a temporary targeted tax cut as opposed to a meaningful reform of long-term

tax of what stimulates investment growth in the economy. i think a lot of republicans who voted for that now have kind of regrets and feel like they shouldn't do it again. >> they shouldn't do it again. except when a republican gets it. they will do it again. as a matter of fact, when you said in the most inefficient way, which is by sending people a check when what the democrats have done now is to actually give your whole tax rate a reduction, but we can talk about this all day. unfortunately, we cannot because we don't have any more time. ovik roy from manhattan institute, michelle wu thank you so much from the center of economic and policy research. thank you. as we go to break, we want to bring you p to speed on a devastating landslide in afghanistan that's recordly buried 2,500 people under 160 feet of mud and rubble. it's too early to tell how many people survived, but at least 350 are feared dead. the afghan national army and police are searching for survivors.

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coming up we reid between the lines on the two groups that -- it's time for we the tweeple and the stories you can't stop buzzing about on social media. we love kevin spacey's bad guy character on "house of cards." he is also blowing up on social media today for playing a villain. >> america has been trying to install democracies for a century, and it hasn't worked one time. >> you think you can just march into these countries based on fundamentalist religious principles, drop a few bombs, topple a dictator and start a democracy? huh. give me a break. >> he is so good. this year's release of call of duty advanced warfare features spacey's voice and likeness as the evil leader of a private military corporation that's for sale to the highest bidder. the trailer has already been watched over one million times and was just released today. i'm sure there are two people in my house that will be asking me

to buy it for them very soon. now from call of duty to someone who has been relieved of duty, leon generalingens, former haefd the chapter of the naacp in l.a. is getting the business on twitter. he stepped down after news of the l.a. branch was planning to give known racist and still clippers owner, for now, donald sterling, a humanitarian award. now the "new york times" is reporting that jenkins, a former judge, was removed from the bench and disbarred in michigan for taking bribes. this is the best thing that we found on mr. jenkins so far. the leon jenkins _#. you've sent almost 3,000 tweets on it in the last 24 hours, playing off his bad fashion sense and even worse judgment. making leon jenkins the twitter name that captures that guy who everybody knows exists. you have tweeted things like this. "judge leon jenkins said ah, suki suki now. leon jenkins has been showing up

for the potato salad to your family reunion that everyone just assumed he was a cousin. uh-huh, you know that person. center the sterling drama to drama over the stars. creationists are attacking astro physicist again for saying in the latest episode of his series "cosmos" that stars are billions of years old. one fundamentalist said that we know that god created the stars on day four of creation week about 6,000 years ago. creation week? is that like fleet week? or shark week? it might be like shark week. degrass tyson sent a tweet. our commonsense is not derived from what's true in neighs nature, but from what our senses per sooif to be true in nature. cool comeback, mr. tyson, and if you are bauching, when you are done with cosmos, come on over and visit us on the reid report. we love to have you on. you can also catch the conversation with fellow reiders on instagram and facebook and msnbc.com and tell us what's important to you.

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live in the same communities that we serve.

people here know that our operations have an impact locally. we're using more natural gas vehicles than ever before. the trucks are reliable, that's good for business. but they also reduce emissions, and that's good for everyone. it makes me feel very good about the future of our company. ♪ republicans in 2010 grab the tea party tiger because it helped generate energy and fuel the wave election in 2010 and keep the drumbeat of anti-obama care and anti-spend and anti-obama going. >> i intend to speak in support of defunding obama care until i am no longer able to stand. >> obama care is going to destroy the doctor-patient relationship. it's going to destroy the quality of health care in america.

>> we're not successful enough in obstructing obama care. this country wouldn't be in this angst it's in today if we had been better obstructionists. >> it's amazing what they're saying is covered by obama care. if you decide to be transgender you can also get that coverage. >> good to know. >> the next time i call your show -- >> of course, the down side is once you let the crazy out of the attic and into the house, it's in the house. in this case or in the case of the government shutdown, it's refusing to pay the mortgage. if you have a gop, the down side is also that if you wind up losing winnable races because of tea party candidates, remember, the losing tea party candidates, you know, like these. autoi am pro-life. i don't believe in the exceptions of rape or incest. >> you can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job. >> i'm not a witch. >> if it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. >> or if you wind up winning, only to have the tea party policies become really unpopular

and big losers for republican incumbents and then you lose, well, now the republican establishment is saying enough. they're fighting back. they're tired of being primaried. they're tired of being threatened. they're tired of having a nonfunctional house and a nearly nonfunctional senate, and, in short, they're tired of having the lights and the phone being turned off. they want their party back. a new national journal article shows how they plan to do it. according to the journal the counter attack will include a direct punch at challengers that are fueled by slick opposition research and aggressive campaign to boost party favorites and most importantly, loads and loads of cash. he worked for texas governor rick perry's presidential campaign in south carolina, and national journal political editor josh crashour co-wrote the aforementioned article. i want to start with you, josh. what are republicans doing to actually try and fight back against the tea party? >> first they realized the

political stakes are very high as far as the battle for the senate goes. you know, the senate is within reach, but they also know that they lost as many as five senate seats in the last two elections because of weaker usually more conservative candidates that were out of the mainstream. what they're doing is they're playing a role in these primaries, these -- a lot of times not a lot of voters show up in these spring and summer primaries, but they're spending millions of dollars, groups like american crossroads, the chamber of commerce, which usually doesn't engage this early in the campaign cycle, and them doing as much as they can both in helping their favorite candidates and even attacks below the radar some of the candidates that are in that same todd aiken mold, the ones that would have real problems win aing general election, and we have a first major primary coming up in may, this coming tuesday, where the statehouse speaker tom tillis is benefitting from millions of dollars in campaign spending on his behalf. >> you know, we were talking even -- i joke about the crazy lady in the attic, but the reality is the tea party gave the republican party a

tremendous amount of energy, right? you had this president coming in, very high approval ratings, and republicans had to figure out a response. then he wanted to use that capital to do universal health care, and the response in a lot of ways was the tea party. it energized the base of the party. then the party kind of lost control of it. when do you suppose that tipping point was that the party kind of lost control and now will it hurt the republican party to try to put down that rebellion? >> well, the message the tea party started off with was a message that was overwhelmingly a republican message. deficit spending, republican government. it wasn't a lot new. people have become disaffected in 2007 and 2008 with the republicans, especially because of spending. they warded their votes to other places or stayed home. the tea party was an organic movement that started on a set of ideas and principles, much like josh said in his article. what's happened now is that they have become more than that. there's more than just a first set of organic things, so much like any organization, they're

not a political party. they don't have nine checkbooks like i had to have when i ran a political party. they don't have that tight organization, but they do have money in the national bunch. what the republican party is doing that the democrat party isn't doing, the democrat party is a center left party right now. we are a center right party. we're fighting each other and spending our troef and treasure against each other right now. when you would say the establishment wing understands what it is now to be in charge. we wasted four years when we had an opportunity to control the united states senate and control the agenda. we spent a lot of time on messaging and a lot of the tea party trying to hold house members accountable. right now i think the republican party understands what winning means and articulating a message on the environment, education, and where we are. so the tea party right now is in for a fight with a lot of us. i've got friends in it. the big thing there is we're republicans. the libertarian movement has moved into the tea party ranks. when you go to a tea party meeting and you ask them to raise their hands and there are 56 groups have groups in south

carolina. about half raise their hands. libertarian parties, people are used to losing. republicans understand what winning is, so you can call us winners or the establishment, but we're not libertarians. >> interesting. i want to go back to you, josh. i want to know how widespread and how broad this effort is, because the reality is that you do have the tea party whether or not the people are in it or not, it is now also engendering a lot of these governors that got elected in 2010, but that are now up for re-election, the unpopular the tea party weighing down rick scott, weighing down tom corbin for others reasons than pennsylvania. paul lapaige and rick schneider. even states like ohio where the governor is in decent shape, but they now are tied to the tea party too. how broad is the effort to try and put down the tea party overall, put the rebellion down to try to save gubernatorial races too. >> right. keep in mind this is in the context of elections, not legislation. when you are looking at the governor's races in 2014, there's some contests like the

one in pennsylvania with tom corbet and the florida race with rick scott where you have very conservative governor that is are in for tough re-elections, and you also have a lot of those conservatives elected in the 2010 way that are doing fairly well. what are you seeing is not just limited to one or two races, though, on the establishment front. you can seeing senate races and house races where you have vulnerable incumbent that is were at risk for a long time that are finally receiving the reinforcements that they didn't get in years past. they're preparing earlier and earlier to understand the grassroots sentiment is very strong. when you have a primary, you're more likely to have the more conservative elements of the party show up. what they're doing is spending money and engaging the more moderate and center right elements of the primary, and they show up and know who their favorite candidates are. >> you know what's really fascinating to me is mitch mcconnell. mitch mcconnell is the ultimate establishment guy. he didn't want rand paul to be the united states senator for kentucky, but he got them, and now they've made common cause to the point where mcconnell --

people generally feel like they don't stand up to the establishment don't stand up to the tea party. he said this about the tea party. i think we're going to crush them everywhere. i don't think they're going to have a single mom knee anywhere in the country. the goal is to deny them any senate primary victories. cut into their fundraising and diminish them as a future force in the republican politics. he said that openly. you now have the leader of the republican party of the senate openly saying they're going to crush the tea party. does that at all hurt mcconnell in his re-election? does it hurt the party overall? >> well, we're a party that needs to put some more people under our tent, but once you know mitch mcconnell, is e is a true warrior. he has been elected time and time again, he understands campaign elections and understands this state, and he will get re-elected wrush at the end of the day once all the dust clears, we hope we have the senator republicans and we hope we don't do what we did last time by nominating people that don't win. winning matters. that's what the democratic party understands. the republican party still circles the wagon.

we pull out the guns and shoot each other. right now november is coming. these incumbent governors came in with tremendous amounts. especially ones who beat the democratic and democratic states came in with tremendous budget deficits and started righting the ships. they're coming home right now. we have storm season coming, and a lot of rick scott has already dealt with one storm. naton dealt with one wrong. >> they need federal money. >> the gop is going to be okay. we're going to be in for a good long fight. all going to be over about the third week in june. he is a warrior. >> you know what makes me hopeful? i was going to call you on it, but i got you to say democratic. darn it. i feel like hope springs eternal. >> that was out of great respect for you, joy. >> you have made my day. indicateden dawson, of course, of the south carolina gop and gop strategist, and josh crashour. thank you for being here. >> thank you. up next, the u.s. is now trooil trying to help the nigerian government find 276

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this is worth talking about. >> bring back our girls. that's got people around the world to pay attention to the mass abduction of school girls. as the tension grows, the number of girls missing is even higher than originally thought. the associated press reports it's actually more like 276 girls between of ages of 15 and 18, still missing out of more than 300 kidnapped in a predawn raid on april 14th. today the bring back our girls rallying cry made its way to the united nations and the nigerian embassy. volunteers and activists shouted out a number for every girl lost to bring attention to the kidnappings demanding the u.n. take action. a spokeswoman for the u.s. state

department says it's "in discussions with the nigerian government on what we might do to help support their efforts to find and free these young women." reports of what has become of the girls are difficult to confirm. chief among them, being stories of cross-border trafficking into marriages of sex slavery, but it's widely believed the girls were taken by members of boco huron, a muslim terrorist network with a history of these kinds of abductions whose name literally means western education is sinful. today the washington post reports a negotiator said the group was willing to consider the release of girls who hadn't already been trafficked saying three of the girls have died and 18 others were sick. the question is will the protests in nigeria earlier this week and here in new york today help the nearly 300 girls in captivity right now, and will the nigerian government and the world pay attention when it happens again? here with me now, my colleague

and msnbc host melissa harris perry. melissa, first of all, i think -- i'm thankful that finally this story is getting attention. >> yes. >> that's the first step. this happened quite a while ago. >> it happened with a kind of silence. both locally, both in the context of the nigerian government. obviously, parents and community immediately calling out, but then also a kind of international silence. maybe silence is too strong a word. certainly there wasn't that sense of outcry that you would expect if 3 had been girls from other kinds of nations, 300 girls from the u.s., 300 girls from spain, you know, for example, went missing. there was -- i think there is a sense that terrible things happen on the couldn't nebt of africa. awful things happen there, and so, of course, parents would expect that some awful thing might happen to their child rather than feeling that sense of empathy for each and every parent. >> you know, the thing is i agree. there is that sense of people on the continent die by the hundreds, so it has to be literally thousands, right, before we start to look at it, but the other thing, i think, that is really terrifying and

horrifying about this is the extent to which these wars, these civil wars on the continent become wars on girls. this is another example of that. >> and the kind of terrorism. i mean, i think it's important to recognize that when you go and steal children and i hate that we're even using the language of marriage. there is nothing that any -- that any person who understands what marriage is should think about what is going on with these girls. they're being trafficked into slavery. they're being killed. that happening in the context of schooling is not only bad for those 300, but it is a way of telling all children you should -- school is unsafe, right? it is that kind of multiplicitive terrorism effect. >> i think what's amaze, if you can use that word for it, is the way that the women in nigeria have responded to it, right? they have really made an all-out visibility push, the photos themselves holding up signs, talking about their girls, protesting outside the u.n., and using social media because this

hash tag is really taking off. it's actually galvanizing interest and support for them. >> we had just had an on-line conversation three weeks ago about whether or not social media is a meaningful form of activism, and, in fact, this is indicative of exactly the ways in which it can be because it allows people who don't have sort of traditional forms of power to suddenly gain visibility. your point that these mothers and fathers and community members never for a moment thought that this was okay. never for a moment thought that their girls did not deserve rescue, and have pushed this until it is now a topic of conversation on u.s. -- >> exactly. >> _#bring back our girls has even now attracted a tweet from one nancy pelosi, who tweeted it's a global outrage that more than 300 nigerian daughters were kidnapped and sold. we must work with international park -- international partners to bring back our girls now. what can the u.s. theoretically do? >> well, you know, i think we

are in a moment in our nation when we don't have much taste for international engagement. we're seeing this in ukraine. we're seeing this as the secretary of state is on the continent and thinking about humanitarian crisis. that said, we are obviously an enormous -- we have enormous global footprint and so the impact here doesn't have to be a military one. you are beginning to see in the british press, some language about actual british troops and boots on the ground that could go, but we also know that we have enormous powers of negotiation and economic interests that could be brought to bash. three letters. oil. that's what we deal with. melissa harris perry, we're both mothers of girls. >> i can't even. >> i really do appreciate you being here, and melissa harris perry is the host of melissa harris perry, which is on every saturday and sunday right here on msnbc. great show. they already watch. what am i saying? 10:00 a.m. weekends on msnbc. thank you, my friend. appreciate it. we'll be right back. ♪ [ female announcer ] there's a gap out there.

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>> if in the fantasy world of the tea party republicans were able to gain control of the senate by a super majority and be in a position to repeal the affordable care act and override a presidential veto, who do you suppose would be the biggest losers? two answers. old people and florida. let's start with florida. it turns out that the sunshine state, the state with the tea party governor whose entire political career was launched by creating a pact to stop universal health care and who despite being the former ceo of a hospital company that defrauded medicare, ran and got elected on opposing obama care. this state that was second in line to join the 27 state lawsuit against the federal government to try and get the affordable care act declared unconstitutional and the state whose republican majority has done everything in its power to stop obama care from refusing to set up a state exchange, to turning down rick scott's plan to accept the medicaid expansion, to throw in all sorts

of restrictions in the way of the health care navigators, it turns out that florida is also the obama care-ious state of them all. florida is the number one state for sign-ups you remembered the affordable care act for states using federal exchanges, and second only to california in the total number of people suning up for obama care. nearly one million florians have signed up. that's one out of every eight people who signed up nationwide. in florida 31 percent of those sign-ups are people under the age of 35. but the other big losers, if obama care were to just, poof, go away, would be seniors, and here's why. remember the donut hole? that's the big gap in the previous biggest expansion of entitlement since the great society, medicare part d. the $550 million prescription drug been at this time that was signed into law by president george w. bush. now, in order to make medicare part d seem less expensive, the bush administration built in a

donut hole which meant that if you are on medicare, you pay out-of-pocket for your monthly premiums all year. you pay 100% of your drug costs up to the $310 deductible, and medicare kicks in 75% of your drug costs up to $2,800. when you get to $2,801, you hit the donut hole, and you pay 100% for your prescription until you get to $4,550, and then your coverage kicks back in. the affordable care act fix that is donut hole. it gives seniors a 50% discount at the counter and closes the donut hole completely by 2020. go ahead, republicans. repeal obama care. then explain to the 40 million american seniors and the swing state voters of florida why that's a good idea. good luck with that. that wraps up the reid report. have a great weekend, and i'll see you right back here next week at 2:00 p.m. eastern, monday through friday, and visit

us on-line at the reid report@msnbc.com. the cycle is up next. hey, how are you doing? >> we're doing great on this lovely friday. we have incredible jobs numbers to talk about. we're going to make a whole meal out of that. we might have to have balloons and cake for jared and peter, though. that will be exciting. we're going to talk about what it will be a sports mascot, and we're going to talk a lot about the l.a. clippers association. i continue to be proud of the players the more i learned about the things they did behind the scenes to make adam silver go in the right direction, but it's okay for us to get all excised about what donald sterling said and what other people have said in terms of racist comments, but there's a bigger battle to fight, joy, and we have to talk about that today. >> no, absolutely. you are just the man to do it. appreciate it. you know what, i want some cake. the cycle comes up next. if i can impart one lesson to a

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a market alert on the cycle this friday. investors are taking an

overwhelmingly positive april jobs report with a grain of salt. they're digesting the numbers just as some of the best economic and political minds on msnbc digested them in real-time this morning. >> 288,000 jobs. >> are you serious? >> the april jobs report is out, and it's a surprisingly strong number. it shows that the economy perhaps may finally be bouncing back after the brutal winter. >> it's almost all good news with the labor force participation did drop again. >> i'm trying to find something -- i said that the economy had been getting better for about three years, and you were poo pooing all over me just about ten minutes ago. >> keep digging because finding a lot of negative news in this report will be hard to do. the unemployment rate down to 6.3%. the lowest it's been since the 2008 crash. the economy added a net gain of 288,000 jobs in april. on top of 203,000 jobs created in march. so much for the spring slump.